BIOGRAPHY

Cary Grant was the quintessential movie star - a leading man whose light comic touch, effortlessly debonair screen presence, and devastating good looks proved timeless in their appeal. After escaping a truly Dickensian childhood in England and paying his dues on the American vaudeville circuit, Grant landed his first leading roles in such features as "She Done Him Wrong" (1933). Having gained notoriety in romantic-comedies like "The Awful Truth" (1937), he went on to star opposite a cavalcade of Hollywood's most luminous leading ladies, including Irene Dunne, Ingrid Bergman, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Eva Marie Saint and Grace Kelly. Classics like "Bringing Up Baby" (1938) paired the star with many of the greatest directors of the golden age of cinema, including Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Frank Capra, Stanley Donen and, most notably, Alfred Hitchcock. For nearly 30 years, Grant remained a major box office draw in hit films that included "Gunga Din" (1939), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "The Philadelphia Story" (1941), "Notorious" (1946), "To Catch a Thief" (1955), "North by Northwest" (1959) and "Charade" (1963). So indelible was his contribution to cinema that he was ranked No. 2 on the American Film Institute's list of the 25 Greatest Screen Legends of All Time in 1999, surpassed only by Humphrey Bogart. Perhaps best summing up the myth and reality of the persona he had become so closely identified with, Grant himself once said, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and, finally, I became that person. Or he became me."